Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley suggests gang attack tactic is out

Under fire Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has conceded his team is reviewing the controversial gang attack tactic that blew up in his face.

Ken Hinkley says it’s been blown up.

Under fire Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley admits his team has gone cold on the controversial gang attack tactic that blew up in their faces in their thumping loss at the hands of Brisbane.

Hinkley’s decision to go after Lions star Lachie Neale at the Adelaide Oval has ben heavily criticised in the wake of the 48-point defeat as being both outside of the spirit of the game and also a blundersome coaching error.

Just a few weeks after knocking off ladder leaders Geelong and blowing away rivals Adelaide in the Showdown, Hinkley is under the pump.

Footy commentator Caroline Wilson said on Monday night’s Footy Classified on Channel 9 that the tactic to rough up Neale “backfired spectacularly”.

It came after Hinkley declared in a pre-game interview his team was going to “terrorise” Neale — just as they did successfully to Max Gawn in their win over the Demons earlier this season.

Port’s Dougal Howard got a good piece of Lachie Neale.

“We’ll try terrorise Lachie I reckon and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

Wilson also suggested the decision to appoint midfielder Cam Sutcliffe — one of Neale’s best mates and a groomsman at his wedding — as the chief aggressor was in poor taste.

“Brisbane are not happy,” Wilson said.

“The AFL and the umpires went over what happened particularly in the first quarter and they’re reasonably satisfied the umpires did as much as they could do. Everyone is really surprised by what Ken Hinkley said at the beginning of the game.

Port Adelaide’s consistently inconsistent form continued yesterday. Can the shocking Power sell any optimism for 2020?

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— Footy Classified (@FootyClassified) July 15, 2019

Caroline Wilson has launched her arrow towards comments made by Dermott Brereton over the weekend.

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“What if they’d won and Lachie Neale had been subjected to that attack from one of his best friends who was brought specifically into the game to play on his best mate, whose bridal party he was in?

“They botched it completely.”

Neale and Sutcliffe spent seven years together at Fremantle before both departing to other clubs at the end of last season.

Earlier in the season Neale racked up 43 touches and 16 clearances when the Lions defeated the Power by 17 points at the Gabba.

It’s why Sutcliffe was given the tough gig that left him red-faced a few hours later.

Neale posted a video on his Instagram account the day after the game where he showed himself and Sutcliffe hanging out and him enjoying a giggle at the back page of the day’s Adelaide Advertiser showing Brisbane’s impressive victory.

Lachie Neale posted a video of him hanging out with Cam Sutcliffe the morning after.

Hinkley addressed the controversy on Tuesday morning — suggesting it had been blown up “just a little bit” into a bigger issue than he believes it is.

“If you look at it, he was tagged tightly,” Hinkley told SEN SA Radio.

“And he’s been tagged before. There was one free kick paid against us on the Lachie Neale situation.

“We didn’t play outside the rules very often, I would have thought.

“We didn’t get the tagging right so we’d be reluctant to do it again this weekend.”

Speaking on Fox Footy’s On The Couch, Paul Roos took aim at Hinkley’s messaging and approach, saying the “terrorise” comment didn’t sit well with him.

Coach of the Power Ken Hinkley has some explaining to do.

“They might’ve wanted to terrorise the scoreboard instead,” Roos cheekily said.

“That was bizarre. I haven’t seen a coach openly talk about that. It’s more the wording and the way he said it, it didn’t sit well with me I must admit.

“You wonder what his message was during the week. We’ve gone from, as Kenny said, three weeks ago ‘we can beat anyone’ to the following week he doesn’t trust his team — the messaging seems a little strange to me.

“If you don’t trust your team, you’re looking for gimmicks and looking for certain things to fire your team up. (Rather, you should) put your head over the ball, make the tackles when you have to make the tackles, be a hard, tough physical side.

“That’s garbage, that stuff.”

Bombers great Matthew Lloyd also labelled it “embarrassing” from Port Adelaide on Channel 9 on Monday night.

Originally published as Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley suggests gang attack tactic is out